Authors

Barbara Day¹;  ¹ Independent Scholar, UK

Discussion

The term "dissident” is generally used to describe someone with an indpendent mind who is living under a repressive regime, and is open and active in showing their disagreement with a discredited government. In 1980s Czechoslovakia, however, I found that among the “dissidents” were those who refused this label, and others who sought a different term. This precision over terminology was especially relevant when the Jan Hus Educational Foundation set up a new type of underground seminar. The colleague with whom we were cooperating was himself a dissident, but the seminar he envisaged would not be attended by him or by any known dissident. Although secret, it was to be a seminar for people whose names were not known to the secret police, who were still living “ordinary” lives and employed in normal work. This paper traces the creation and activity of this seminar in Brno, second city of the Czech Republic, and its five-year intense but hidden existence.